Jonas Staal

Earth Workers Requiem/Jubilate   

Earth workers requiem/Jubilate is a large-scale installation that is on display in the Noordbrabants Museum in ‘s-Hertogenbosch until early March 2025. The work is a collaboration between composer Micha Hamel and visual artist Jonas Staal for the eighth edition of the annual Bosch Requiem by November Music. The installation sketches a bleak picture of a future built on the remains of fossil fuels. To accompany Hamel’s composition, Staal created an impressive landscape comprising pyramids of hardened crude oil, prehistoric fossils and woven banners. These banners depict the rare life forms that thrive in climate disasters and will become the impoverished fossil archives of the future.

With product developer Lotte van Dijk, Staal wove 12 striking banners from organic cotton, wool, mohair and recycled PET yarn. Against an orange background are animals that will probably survive longer than most, such as ring-necked parakeets, wild boars, sheep ticks, anchovies and oyster parasites. To retain the photographic quality of the images, a palette of approximately 80 colours was chosen. For the orange background, several orange yarns were twisted together to achieve the right shade. As the fabric was quite stiff, thinner sections were incorporated. These were turned into pole pockets for the flagpoles used to hang the banners.

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Photos by Ruben Hamelink